Changing the Frame of Early Modern Interracial Encounters

Abstract

J oan Kelly-Gadol’s 1977 pathbreaking “Did Women Have a Renaissance?” showed how the Renaissance’s liberating effects for men did not have similar consequences for women, who lost ground compared to their medieval counterparts. Frames matter. If Kelly-Gadol challenged us to rethink periodization, what insights might a respatialization of the Renaissance offer? How do our perceptions of race and gender shift if we compare Europe to other parts of the world? I can only sketch some possibilities in this short contribution. Focusing on the native mother of a Melakanmestiço, I hope to show how female lives read very differently depending on whether they are viewed through a European or an archipelagic Southeast Asian frame. Thus, I also call for comparatism as an approach. What we know of Elena Vessiva is related by her son, with his own fascinating biography. Manuel Godinho de Erédia, born in 1558 or 1563 in Melaka, moved to Goa after his mother’s death and became a surveyor and cartographer, working for the colonial government in India and, from 1601 to 1606, in Melaka. A prolific author, although unpublished, Erédia has been garnering attention as “a